Petra’s Dry Facade Masks Its Water-Soaked Past

Visitors to Jordan’s ancient city of Petra encounter parched, tomb-like facades carved at cave entrances, but the arid remains mask what archaeologists have learned was a verdant trade center packed with gardens, fountains and villas.

The ornate facades at the end of a narrow canyon have become Jordan’s main tourist attraction. They made an appearance in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” as the hiding place of the Holy Grail. Archeologists say the caves were used as tombs, sites for family memorial dinners and places to cool from the desert sun. Smithsonian magazine reports on how archeologists digging in the sand around those famous buildings have discovered since the 1990s the lavishness of the city’s many freestanding buildings, which were destroyed by earthquakes and erosion. At the peak of Petra’s power and wealth–from around the first century B.C. to an earthquake in 363 A.D.–the Nabateans who built the city had an iron grip on trade between South Arabia and the Roman Empire.

In the past few years, archeologists have discovered that the Nabateans built a complex system to store water for orchards, baths and pools at odds with the desert surroundings. Archeologists have found a large garden with “pools, shade trees, bridges and a lavish pavilion”–the only such garden discovered in the arid southern part of the Middle East. The surrounding hillsides were converted into vineyards and orchards. Much of the town, whose peak population was around 30,000, remains hidden under debris and centuries of accumulating sand. Many piles of rubble have yet to be explained and only scant details of the Nabateans’ religion and culture are known. — Robin Moroney